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Chatham County, school board reach agreement for islands library

Islands residents are a step closer to having a new place to check out the latest best sellers.

Chatham County and Savannah-Chatham public school officials have agreed to the terms of a land swap deal that will provide a site for a new library branch on Whitemarsh Island.

Under the terms of the agreement, the school board will give the county four acres at Johnny Mercer Boulevard and Whitemarsh Island Drive, next to the Islands police precinct, for the new library site. In return, Chatham will give the school board the property where the current library resides on Wilmington Island, for a possible expansion of May Howard Elementary.

In addition, the county will provide some wetland mitigation credits for school construction projects. The county will also make library parking available to school patrons and the public for use after school hours.

The county commission is set to approve the agreement on Friday, following the school board’s approval of the agreement Wednesday.

A construction contract for the islands branch, as well as a new west Chatham library, was awarded in June 2011, but location issues at the Garden City Town Center, where the west Chatham branch will go, and difficulty in reaching the final terms of the islands’ branch agreement delayed the project’s start.

Commissioners had considered alternative locations for the west Chatham branch after the developer of the site refused to extend the frontage road for the library. They decided to stick with the site when the architect said the road’s construction costs could be absorbed into the project’s budget.

RJ Griffin and Co. was selected as the contractor by the county commission. The contractor pledged during the initial selection process that 90 percent of its workforce will be Chatham residents.

County Attorney Jon Hart said the language of the contract with RJ Griffin has been agreed upon, but the contract has not been signed. They have still not settled on a guaranteed maximum price. Under the terms of the contract, RJ Griffin will be responsible for any costs over that price, as long as the work is within the scope of the project, Hart said. About $10.5 million has been budgeted for the sales tax-funded project.

The project will be the second major county project with such local participation goals set. The contractor in charge of the $71 million jail expansion had pledged a 76 percent local worker participation rate, but has been unable to reach that goal. About 51 percent of the workers were from Chatham in October, according to the most recent staffing report.